When 29 people representing a number of families from a small area around Lack emigrated to the United States in 1872, it led to a link between Fermanagh and the State of Illinois that has lasted more than 140 years.

The success of family trees and geneology is due to a few committed family members on both sides of the Atlantic for establishing links and keeping in contact.

David Keys from Lack has spend a considerable amount of time tracing family roots, especially those who made the huge step to leave Ireland in the late 1800s to establish new lives in rural America. However he had an equally passionate family member in Illinois, who has been establishing the links for more than 62 years, George Boyden.

In 1953, George, then in his early 20s, picked up a copy of The Impartial Reporter while visiting Enniskillen in an effort to re-establish family links between Lack in Fermanagh and Illinois State. Contacts had been lost for many years. He had arrived in the town by train. He then wrote a letter to the paper, seeking information about his great-grandparents, William Henry Marshall and Jane Virtue Marshall and their children, Jane Marshall Sproule, Margaret Marshall Evans, Elizabeth Marshall Braton, Sarah Marshall Keys and Henry Marshall Junior, who had emigrated in 1872 from the townlands of Glenarn and Tiermacspird. The 29 family members had settled in Logan County, Illinois to establish farms on mostly virgin land which were opening up with new railroads and which helped to bring produce to market.

David Keys’ mother, Rebecca was one who responded to the published letter and many of the letters she wrote to George and his letters in return have been preseved and the information used for the family tree.

George said: “David’s mother and I corresponded for some time but I had been told that early records had been lost in a fire in Dublin.” In 2008, David was looking through letters after his mother’s death and discovered many of the letters which helped to re-establish the family’s links again. Now George has visited Fermanagh numerous times and David has been to the homesteads, farms and towns where his ancestors helped to build and develop in Illinois. Family names involved were Keys, Marshalls, Virtues, Armstrongs, Brattons, Evans and Sproules.

All of the first settlers are buried at Floral Hill. There the families’ ancestors bought a large plot of land so that all the family members could be buried close to each other. To-day it is an emotional place for any family descendants to visit.

David said: “Only for George I would not have known about much of this.” The story has been reignited in the past few weeks following George’s visit back to Fermanagh who was accompanied by another family member, Lynda Fort.

Just before the Twelfth of July, George and Lynda were invited by Lack L.O.L. No. 825 where a warrant for the lodge was issued by the Orange Institution of Ireland on December 1 1863 to Thompson Evans, who was Worshipful Master and who with his wife, Margaret(formerly Marshall), and their five children, emigrated to Logan County in Illinois in 1872. They later moved to Iroquois County where they became successful farmers.

Before leaving Lack, Thompson Evans was presented with a Bible by the lodge and it has remained in the family since, and is now the property of his great, grand-daughter who lives in Kansas.

On the Twelfth morning, Pettigo District Lodge, who hosted the demonstration, held a reception for the visitors in Kesh. It was George’s first time to witness a Twelfth parade particularly poignant as Thompson Evans, probably the oldest of the group who left Lack in the late 1800s aged in his 40s, had been the first Worshipful Master of Lack lodge.

George said the family members in the US to-day are leading many different careers, as university professors, doctors, and farmers. He worked for a petroleum company until retirement.

David confirmed that on his visit there a few years ago, he had seen how his ancestors had progressed.

“They were economic migrants at the time they left Lack,” he explained.

However after settling on great expanses of land in the United States, he said: “They did prosper. I’ve seen what is there now and they prospered. The land they have is now worth millions and is all soya bean and corn.

“The families started draining what was mostly swamp and were involved in producing livestock, beef cattle, purebred horses. They built schools and helped build the communities,” explained David.